stephen thomas
Diamond
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2001
Back in January I tried to get a jump on my wife's Feb B-day and make her a utility tool and supply drawer stack for the sewing machine.
Again, this was not intended to be "styled". Just a quick, solid utilitatian box set made of Baltic birch ply with wood slides, based on a type of commodity stacking shelf units I make. The drawer size, aprox 20" x 20" ID, was based loosely on an arrangement of cigar boxes that a local merchant saves for her, for dividers. Of course a close fit would be more rectangular, but I made them square so the boxes could be oriented either direction inside, and so that I had choice for drawer joint orientation, and less complexity of parts while building them.
"Many" years ago I made the curved nosings for the theatre at the National Archives, out of Bloodwood. So lots of long curves, yielding lots of long slightly curved one edge, triangles & 1/2 moons of "scrap" bloodwood. With a 2" nosing curve cut from a long 8" or 10" wide plank, on a volume basis there is often more "scrap" left, than product. It gets used from time to time over the years for various utility items that require a hard, dense (does not float)slightly oily wood with a nice smell. The downside to Bloodwood is it's gnarly, high stress, unstable nature, so best used in thin sections.
My biggest error was to automatically make the box 1-1/16" wider than the drawers as would be common for almost any mechanical slide
Even before I actually discovered that (box on one side of the shop, drawers on the other) my next error was trying to take a production approach to cutting the grooves in the plywood drawers to inlay the slides: too much blowout at the corners with a dado set. So I decided to run the groove the whole way 'round each drawer, choose the best front, and add an accent strip to fill it.
The discovery that the drawers were much too small was the most devastating, and that will explain why the slides are so wide; and hence thicker and buttressed to the drawer sides for strength. It was NOT a design intention.
With tough wood, and relatively light contents in the drawers, the action is "effortless" compared to ball bearing slides, and almost full extension.
I did intend to make small knob or drop pulls for each drawer, but my wife would not let me, at least for now. Her fingers are much smaller than mine and can pull under the drawers.
smt
Again, this was not intended to be "styled". Just a quick, solid utilitatian box set made of Baltic birch ply with wood slides, based on a type of commodity stacking shelf units I make. The drawer size, aprox 20" x 20" ID, was based loosely on an arrangement of cigar boxes that a local merchant saves for her, for dividers. Of course a close fit would be more rectangular, but I made them square so the boxes could be oriented either direction inside, and so that I had choice for drawer joint orientation, and less complexity of parts while building them.
"Many" years ago I made the curved nosings for the theatre at the National Archives, out of Bloodwood. So lots of long curves, yielding lots of long slightly curved one edge, triangles & 1/2 moons of "scrap" bloodwood. With a 2" nosing curve cut from a long 8" or 10" wide plank, on a volume basis there is often more "scrap" left, than product. It gets used from time to time over the years for various utility items that require a hard, dense (does not float)slightly oily wood with a nice smell. The downside to Bloodwood is it's gnarly, high stress, unstable nature, so best used in thin sections.
My biggest error was to automatically make the box 1-1/16" wider than the drawers as would be common for almost any mechanical slide
Even before I actually discovered that (box on one side of the shop, drawers on the other) my next error was trying to take a production approach to cutting the grooves in the plywood drawers to inlay the slides: too much blowout at the corners with a dado set. So I decided to run the groove the whole way 'round each drawer, choose the best front, and add an accent strip to fill it.
The discovery that the drawers were much too small was the most devastating, and that will explain why the slides are so wide; and hence thicker and buttressed to the drawer sides for strength. It was NOT a design intention.
With tough wood, and relatively light contents in the drawers, the action is "effortless" compared to ball bearing slides, and almost full extension.
I did intend to make small knob or drop pulls for each drawer, but my wife would not let me, at least for now. Her fingers are much smaller than mine and can pull under the drawers.
smt